Covering a wide area of the London and Hampshire basins, the London Clay has been famous for over two hundred years as one of the richest Eocene strata in the country. In this work, first published between 1849 and 1858, Fellows of the Royal Society Richard Owen (1804 92) and Thomas Bell (1792 1880) describe their findings from among the reptilian fossils found there. The book is divided into four parts, covering chelonian, crocodilian, lacertilian and ophidian fossils, and includes an extensive section of detailed illustrations. Using his characteristic 'bone to bone' method and an emphasis...

Richard Owen F.R.S. (1804 92) was a controversial and influential palaeontologist and anatomist. Owen studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and at London's St Bartholomew's Hospital. He grew interested in anatomical research, and after qualifying he became assistant conservator in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, and then superintendent of natural history in the British Museum. He quickly became an authority on comparative anatomy and palaeontology, coining the term 'dinosaur' and founding the Natural History Museum. He was also a fierce critic of Darwin's theory of...

Richard Owen F.R.S. (1804 92) was a controversial and influential palaeontologist and anatomist. Owen studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and at London's St Bartholomew's Hospital. He grew interested in anatomical research, and after qualifying he became assistant conservator in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, and then superintendent of natural history in the British Museum. He quickly became an authority on comparative anatomy and palaeontology, coining the term 'dinosaur' and founding the Natural History Museum. He was also a fierce critic of Darwin's theory of...

Richard Owen F.R.S. (1804 92) was a controversial and influential palaeontologist and anatomist. Owen studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and at London's St Bartholomew's Hospital. He grew interested in anatomical research, and after qualifying he became assistant conservator in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, and then superintendent of natural history in the British Museum. He quickly became an authority on comparative anatomy and palaeontology, coining the term 'dinosaur' and founding the Natural History Museum. He was also a fierce critic of Darwin's theory of...

A significant limitation on the development of zoology, botany and palaeontology in the mid-nineteenth century was the absence of a centralised collection of specimens. Appointed superintendent of the British Museum's natural history departments in 1859, the distinguished biologist Richard Owen (1804 92) quickly realised the need to make various scattered samples more readily available for study, and began campaigning for a new, national museum with unprecedented space and resources. This book is the text of one of his speeches to the Royal Institution, given in 1861 and first published in...

British palaeontologist Thomas Davidson (1817 85) was born in Edinburgh and began his studies at the city's university. Encouraged by German palaeontologist Leopold von Buch, he began to study brachiopod fossils at the age of twenty, and he quickly became the undisputed authority. He was elected fellow of the Geological Society of London in 1852, receiving the Wollaston medal in 1865. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1857. Published between 1850 and 1886, this six-volume work became the definitive reference text on the subject. It includes more than two hundred hand-drawn plates and...

This is the official guide to Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins' sculptures at Crystal Palace, Sydenham, including dinosaurs and other monsters. Owen's guide offers technical descriptions of their biology and geology.